


Lie To Me, Baby

by whiskeyandspite



Series: Lie To Me, Baby [1]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Cheating, Established Relationship, M/M, Teasing, based on Dakota Skye, happy ending I promise you please don't kill me, very much requited unrequited love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:45:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>My name is Spencer Reid. I’m 26 years old, 6’1’’, and I have a super power.</i>
</p><p>Spencer Reid is incapable of being lied to. People can try, but he just sees it written all over their faces, or, more accurately, in Calibri font above their heads. He spends weeks at a time hoping someone will tell the truth for a change, and then a case takes the BAU to Chicago, where he meets Derek Morgan who doesn't appear to ever lie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lie To Me, Baby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> This is based on Dakota Skye and as much as I want to take credit for some of my favourite scenes in this I just can't. They don't belong to me. They belong to the people who wrote the brilliant script.
> 
> Coincidentally, the BAU team doesn't belong to me either, much as I wished they did.
> 
> This is a gift for the brilliant and beautiful [explosionsareyourfriend](http://archiveofourown.org/users/explosionsareyourfriend), who not only beta'd this monster but also deserves all the cuddles in the world ever. Thank you lovie.
> 
> Apparently... I must write a sequel, if you want one let me know ^^

 

_My name is Spencer Reid. I’m 26 years old, 6’1’’, and I have a super power._

_I can’t fly, I can’t turn invisible – though through most of my high school career I wished I’d developed the ability – and I’m pretty sure that a bullet would make me good and dead; I’ve been shot enough times to know they hurt like hell. I don’t have X-ray vision either._

_Well, not exactly._

_The fact is that I am incapable of being lied to. When someone tells a lie, any lie, to me, to anyone, I know the truth. I know what they really mean. There are no lies in my world, or, there are nothing but._

  _It’s kind of hard to explain._

_It’s like movies from other countries, when someone says something and subtitles come up on the screen. The doctors thought it was synaesthesia at first; my family has a history of mental phenomena, it wasn’t a bad guess, but it’s never been proven. I don’t see the words as colored, I can’t see them on different spatial levels, they don’t have a personality of their own and they don’t elicit a sound when they appear. They just appear. Near or around the person talking. Imagine it like a comic strip but without the thought bubble to contain them._

_I’ve been this way since I was little._

_I always knew my dad was Santa. Made Christmases with extended family awkward when a four-year-old accused his dad of lying to him when he’d taught him to always tell the truth himself. You’d also be surprised how many teachers don’t believe a word of what they’re telling their class._

_In sophomore year of college when Brenda Jones told me she loved me, she believed it. So I let her kiss me and took her to the party a frat had been throwing that weekend, even though I ended up leaving with Jared Neeson, whose claims of being straight were quite false. I let him take my virginity too. It had to go sometime. And he didn’t seem to have qualms about me being underage._

_To the best of my knowledge I’ve never been bitten by a radioactive spider or dosed with an overabundance of gamma rays. The first is completely improbable, the other would kill me. All I know is that I am just involuntarily cursed with the truth. Something people spend their entire lives looking for._

_Lucky me._

 -

“Three bodies have been found in the last two weeks in the Chicago bay area,” Hotch’s tone was sombre, as it always was when he delivered the details of a case to the team. Reid didn’t look at him when he did. He never lied in briefings, but it was too early in the morning to check. “Garcia?”

Penelope bounded up. The coffee hit her bloodstream much faster than Reid’s, apparently. Though considering his drinks had a thimbleful of coffee at most, the rest being milk and flavour and cream, it wasn’t particularly surprising. He took a sip of his drink on reflex and flipped his file open.

"Hello my wonder team,” she said, fiddling with the remote, “The Windy City has had some serious weather these last few days and although that’s not particularly unusual, what was found in the aftermath was,”

She clicked the remote and six images appeared on the screen, three healthy, happy-looking people, and three corpses that had once been those healthy happy-looking people. Reid examined the photos in his folder; technology gave him a headache, too many lies flitting around that he couldn’t filter through like he’d learned to with living, breathing human beings.

“Tobias Sade, Elias Kane and Jade Rowan were all found poisoned, cyanide, after a heavy rainstorm all over the city.”

“Any connections between the victims?” Emily asked, flipping through the images on her tablet. Hotch shook his head.

“Completely different ages and ethnicities. Jade Rowan was a small-time drug dealer, while both Tobias and Elias held down well-paying jobs.”

“Manager at a bone bank and risk analyst,” Reid confirmed, holding a page of his file between his fingers as he chewed his lip, “Did either of them have families?” he glanced up.

“The two men didn’t,” Garcia explained, pressing another button on the remote, “Not… family, exactly. Tobias had a business partner that went missing the same day but turned up two days later saying he’d been on an impromptu vacation.”

_The bastard probably killed him._

Reid sighed and flicked his eyes back to his file. “Was he a suspect for a while?”

“Only a few days,” JJ said quietly, “His alibi checked out. He was out of town the night Tobias died and he has six people who can testify to that.”

“Damn,” Will drawled, smirking a little, “And I thought we could have it easy for once.”

Reid felt the familiar warmth slide over his body with that voice. He and Will had been together for five months now. Will was a liar, but no more than anybody else. The first few times he’d told Spencer he loved him he’d meant it, or believed it anyway. Now, it was just a comfortable, give-take of hot sex and warm cuddling. They were both bisexual, so at least being closeted wasn’t an issue.

“And what about Elias?” Rossi asked, rubbing his bottom lip with his finger in thought. Garcia shook her head, expression apologetic.

“Nada. He had an on-off girlfriend for a while but they broke up last year. And before you ask, Jade Rowan was a run away.”

“She was only eighteen,” Emily sighed, returning to the first image on her tablet.

“We’ll be working closely with the Chicago PD on this case,” Hotch explained, standing up to take Garcia’s place at the head of the table. “Will knows the detective who heads the case there, so he’ll be liaising. Wheels up in thirty.”

The team took their time leaving the boardroom, with Will lingering to catch Reid’s eye as the young man flipped his folder closed and stood.

“Thirty, huh,” he said, smiling, “Plenty of time.”

Reid gave him a neutral look. “You know I pack for this as soon as I get the call. You, on the other hand, don’t.”

Will chuckled, “They’re called quickies for a reason, Spence,”

Reid raised an eyebrow without saying a word. Will sighed and offered a thin smile.

“Doesn’t matter,” _You ruin my fun,_ “I’ll see you at the airstrip.”

Reid watched him go and sighed, finishing his coffee in one and tossing the paper cup into the bin as he passed it.

-

_Every superhero has a nemesis, an arch enemy. Someone who can counter their power._

_Mine is a dark-skinned detective named Derek Morgan._

-

It was pouring when the jet landed in Chicago, not that they’d expected any different. Will grinned and marched through the rain as though it didn’t bother him. It probably didn’t. He’d grown up in New Orleans. Reid followed, head ducked against the wind. JJ and Emily shared an umbrella, half cursing half laughing at how ineffective the thing was.

The police station was large and crowded. They were met by a young officer and shown to the boardroom that had been designated to them so they could set up. Reid had just pulled his satchel off his shoulder when he heard Will curse.

“Well fuck me sideways…” Reid rolled his eyes as his true meaning meandered around his head before fading. _It’s good to see you_. Those words never floated around Will’s head when the words ‘fuck’ and ‘me’ were in one sentence and directed at Reid. “Derek fucken Morgan.”

“Will,” the voice was deep and lower, warm. Reid straightened and glanced at the man who had come into the room, pulling Will into an embrace and slapping his back before stepping back. “It’s good to see you man, wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.”

Will replied something but Reid wasn’t paying much attention. He was studying Derek Morgan. The man was tall and well built, the kind of muscle that comes with practice being out in the field and honing his skills, not hours upon useless hours at the gym for show. The man was shaved bald and had the dark shadow of stubble around his lips and chin. It suited him.

Reid raised his hand in an awkward wave when he was introduced and offered a brief smile. Derek’s eyes lingered on him and he smiled a little wider, waiting a beat longer than was strictly comfortable before moving his eyes to the other team members as Will introduced them. Reid swallowed.

“The unsub’s been at this a while,” Morgan said, after the pleasantries were over. “Similar cases had been reported over a year ago. Same M.O., found after serious storms, poisoned with cyanide. We followed all the leads from the last murders and came up empty. I’m hoping we don’t have to discover another body before we can crack this one.”

“We need to talk to Sade’s business partner,” Hotch said, glancing at Morgan, the other nodded, “Rossi, you and JJ head over to the morgue to look at the bodies. Prentiss and I will interview Sade’s partner. Reid, you and Will start with the last crime scene and work your way back, we need to know what our victims were doing before they were killed.”

“I can take you to the apartments,” Morgan offered, nodding, eyes flicking to Reid for a moment before returning to Hotch, “Maybe I can help.”

“Excellent.” Hotch checked his watch, “The last victim was found eight hours ago, and the time between the second and third victim was much shorter than that between the first and second. If he’s escalating, another body could show up at any time.”

The team broke into their assigned pairs and left the boardroom. Reid slipped his bag over his shoulder again and walked up to stand next to Will as he chatted to his friend. They’d apparently been in the force together in Chicago before Will had applied for the BAU, though with the amount of words floating around Will’s head as he casually told anecdotes, Reid wasn’t sure what to believe.

“You’re the only one your boss called by first name,” Morgan commented as he led them to the garage where the cars were parked for police use, “You something special?”

“Actually it’s because his name is so difficult to pronounce for native English speakers,” Reid interjected before Will had a chance to reply, “Saying LeMontagne Jr. takes a lot more effort than calling him by his monosyllabic hypocoristic.”

Morgan blinked at him and smiled, glancing at Will before cocking his head at Reid.

“Damn, kid,” he said quietly, “Say it like it is.”

Reid smiled thinly, “I do, often.”

“He’s kept me honest by being honest,” Will replied with a slight, fond, roll of his eyes. Reid’s jaw tightened a little as the words _he’s a very good fuck_ floated around him and disappeared. “I do love ‘im.” The words from earlier flickered into place again, and faded. Reid looked away, opening the back door of the car and climbing in.

It took the two men a moment longer before they climbed into the car too, Morgan starting the engine and meeting Reid’s eyes in the rear view mirror.

“I’ll take you to Rowan’s.” he said.

-

_I guess one thing that I should make clear, is that I can’t read minds. Unless something is explicitly spoken, or written by someone a few moments before I see it, I can’t read farther into it. Newspapers have proved to not be a problem. Social media quite the opposite. But if I stand in front of someone and they don’t say a word, I have no idea what they’re thinking. It doesn’t work like that._

_I’ve found that little white lies are the easiest to ignore, in this case. The most common is lying about how you are. How are you? Fine. You’d be shocked how many words flitter around that single answer. Horrid. Suicidal. Bored. You asked me a question? The list is endless. Actually, that’s not true. I kept a list once, just to see. Many started repeating themselves after a few years and I gave it up. there were 384 points on the list._

_So little white lies don’t even register anymore. Everyone lies. I go through weeks at a time praying someone will say what they mean for once. Like I said, it’s hard to explain._

-

“Fuck!” Spencer arched his back, legs hooked around Will’s hips as the man drove into him faster, pushing gasps out of the younger man with every thrust. The hotel room was dark, and it was nearing three am, but neither could sleep. The case was taking its toll on the entire team, and hell, the walls were sound proof so why the hell not?

“Are you close?” he murmured, eyes flickering open as he gasped again.

“Mmmph…” _I just came_. Spencer sighed and twisted his neck a little as Will sucked against it. It didn’t take long for him to follow. Melting into the bed as his limbs fell into delicious post-coital lethargy.

“Fuck… I love you.” _I love sex_.

“Mmm,” Spencer replied, running a hand through Will’s hair before kissing him softly and wriggling out from under his body to clean himself up. Will stayed where he was, just watching him meander to the bathroom and start the water in the sink.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” he said gently. Spencer glanced up. at least Will believed that one. He smiled.

“I haven’t slept in three days.”

“None of us have.” Will rubbed his eyes and sat up, carefully pulling off the condom and tying it off before tossing it away. Spencer returned to cleaning himself up before washing his face and staring at himself in the mirror. He could never read lies off himself. Maybe because deep down he already knew they were lies…

“JJ said she’d help with the interviews tomorrow.” Will murmured from the bed. Spencer nodded at himself in the mirror before flipping the light off in the bathroom and joining his partner in bed.

“Who do you have?”

Will wrapped an arm around Spencer’s shoulders and pulled him close, mumbling against his forehead.

“I got Wyatt for the Sade side, ‘n a few of the junkies that Rowan sold to. I think Hotch’s taking the old cases. Kane has no one we can interview.” _I can’t be bothered digging into that man’s past_.

Spencer sighed and ducked his head under Will’s chin. They were quiet for a moment before Will smiled against him.

“I can feel the cogs turning in there,” he murmured. Spencer had to smile.

“Kane has a history with hiring escorts from different agencies, a few had filed complaints about the man. Garcia sent through all the information to your tablet, I read it over lunch.”

“Then why don’t you interview them?”

“My interview skills aren’t exactly up to par, Will,” Spencer replied quietly, “You remember the last time I was in an interrogation room…”

“You did well,” _you sucked_. “Take Morgan with you, he can sell ice to an Eskimo.”

“Actually, Eskimos don’t…”

Will kissed him to shut him up. it was a tactic he’d developed fairly quickly when they’d first started dating. Spencer allowed it and sighed, not saying a word as he heard Will’s breathing even out under him. It took him a lot longer to get to sleep and he woke up alone, Will having let him sleep as he’d left to start his interviews early.

Reid sighed and groaned into the pillow before dragging his phone over to check the time. He wasn’t late, not by BAU standards, but he still needed to shower and figure out a way to get to the Chicago field office without his ride.

He fired a quick message off to his partner, telling him to grab him from the lobby in half an hour, and got out of bed to make himself presentable.

-

Reid glanced up in confusion when the car that pulled up to pick him up had Morgan in it instead of Will.

“Uh, hi.” He offered vaguely, glancing around before raising an eyebrow at Morgan. The other just grinned at him.

“Hey, Will’s interview ran late, apparently they got more from one of the junkies than they’d expected. He told me to pick you up so we could start talking to the escorts Kane hired.”

Reid pursed his lips a little and Morgan’s grin grew.

“Come on, pretty-boy, I don’t bite unless you ask nicely.”

Reid bristled a little at the petname but moved to get into the car nonetheless. Morgan peeled away from the curb in silence and flicked the radio to a quiet easy-listening station. Reid fidgeted beside him, fingers worrying the leather of his satchel.

“I haven’t seen Will have that look on his face for months now.” He commented quietly when the quiet had started to feel awkward. Morgan glanced over and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?” he smiled, “And what look is that?”

Reid pursed his lips and turned his head to look out the window as he answered. “Joy.”

Morgan laughed and shook his head.

“That can’t be true. We just haven’t seen each other for long enough to not be at each other’s throats yet. Give it a few days.”

Reid snorted and shook his head.

“As long as you aren’t involved in a secret illicit relationship with my boyfriend, he can wear that look around anyone he likes.” He knew Will wasn’t cheating on him. it would be too easy to read it off him if he had been. Not only because of the words flying around him like midges if he’d tried to lie, but because Will had more tells than any other profiler Reid had ever worked with. He wondered if it would bother him if Will was seeing someone else behind his back. His complete lack of emotion regarding the matter did frighten Reid a little.

Next to him, Morgan laughed. “I passed my stage of experimenting over a decade ago,” he said, “I know who I want and it ain’t Will.”

Reid glanced at him, amused. “So you have a girl back home?”

Morgan shook his head, glancing over briefly. “Not really my area.”

“Boy?” Reid asked, tone exactly the same.

“Nothing serious just…” Morgan shrugged, navigating a particularly tricky intersection before continuing. “I dunno. No one that makes me…”

“Horny?” Reid supplied, cocking his head a little, “Happy? Hungry?”

Morgan gave Reid that dazzling smile again before turning back to the road.

“Nah, plenty of that. I dunno it’s… no one makes me… vibrate, I guess.”

Reid gave him a completely deadpan stare. “Vibrate.”

“Yea, you know when you’re with someone and you want to be filled up with this… this energy? You know you just want to…” he glanced at Reid and sighed, turning his smile to the road once more. “I know. It’s bullshit right?”

“Not at all.” Reid replied calmly, eyes tracking Morgan’s every movement, looking for a lie, any lie. He hadn’t seen one on the man since he’d met him. Morgan gave him another soft smile and turned away, chewing his lip as he drove.

They didn’t speak again until they entered the office.

-

“You’ve reached the shrine of the amazing Queen Penelope, please leave your tributes and I’ll see to it that your needs are met.”

Reid smiled, fingers pressing the phone into his palm as he took in Morgan’s reaction.

“You’re on speaker, Garcia,” he murmured, waiting for the inevitable squeak on the other end of the line. “I need you to run a search for me,” he said after a moment as Garcia fumbled an apology to the room at large, “I’ve sent you an image that we’ve found on two of the three victims so far. The others had shown a trace of marker pen as well but we’re waiting for the results to confirm it was the same pattern.”

“Boy Wonder I am over this like e-coli on glazed ham. Garcia OUT.”

Reid hung up and pocketed his phone again. Morgan just blinked at him.

“Well that was interesting…”

“Garcia’s our technical expert,” Reid replied, turning to the map they’d been studying, bending over the table just a little as he lined up the ruler and traced another line from one victim’s location to another.

“Sounds like she’s as brilliant as you are.”

“Almost,” Reid slowly straightened up again, “I do have a higher IQ and although computers are her forte they make perfect sense to me mathematically and were I inclined to I would be able to learn to code like she does, I just rarely have time when I work on a PhD.”

The words floating around Reid’s head would have made a cloud if he could see them on himself. He didn’t understand computers in more than concept. He didn’t like technology. He held his cellphone like it was a poisonous spider and from the way Morgan was looking at him, he could see right through him.

But he didn’t say anything beyond, “How are we going with determining the location?”

Reid’s eyes narrowed a little. Maybe he did lie, maybe he just avoided doing so with practice. The thought had occurred to him before but Morgan seemed far too relaxed to be thinking about this as much as Reid clearly was. He turned his eyes back to the map.

“I’ve narrowed it down to a ten mile radius, if we assume the unsub is working from the center point in the area and not just disposing of the bodies there for show.”

“How often does the latter happen?” Morgan asked, walking to stand closer to Reid as he pointed out the locations where the bodies were found and used a compass to draw the circle of interest.

Reid made a sound in his throat.

“Not often.” He confirmed, “There’s no such thing as true randomness. There’s always a pattern.”

“Then we’ll find it.”

-

“So how do you know Morgan anyway?” Reid asked, ripping open four little sugar sachets at once and emptying them into his coffee. Will watched, amused, as he picked up two more and emptied those in as well. “You’ve never mentioned him to me before.”

Will just shrugged. “When mum and dad divorced I lived with dad in New Orleans for a few years, transferred schools for my final year when I went to live with mum.”

Reid stirred his coffee in silence, letting Will talk. He knew his father had died just before his senior year. They didn’t talk about it often.

“Chicago’s not a nice place for a senior newbie. I dunno, I guess we understood each other, me ‘n Morgan.” He was quiet a moment before laughing quietly and taking a sip of his own drink. “We both auditioned for this band… Morgan didn’t stay long.”

“Why not?”

"Because he sucked.” Will grinned, “We kicked him out.”

Reid smiled a little and shook his head before setting his spoon aside, finally sampling his coffee-flavored sugar syrup, as Will called it.

“You in a band, Will, hmm…”

"Hey, I was awesome.” Will laughed, punching him lightly on the arm, “If I hadn’t have wanted to be a cop so badly I’d be knee deep in groupies right now, who’d be laughing then?”

“The groupies.” Reid replied on cue, smiling innocently. Will rolled his eyes fondly, drinking his coffee slowly as they waited for the call from Garcia. She’d identified the symbol for Reid, and was now digging through the backgrounds of the earlier victims, trying to find a connection.

It had been three days since the last victim and the sky was growing stormy. Around them, people were gathered in small groups or pairs, enjoying their drinks and gossiping happily amongst themselves. Reid was rather interested in a discussion a few tables over that he could hear without even trying; the couple weren’t making an effort to keep their voices down. It was something to do with a co-worker that they both found irritating. Lies were floating around them in clouds but the essence of the conversation was clear: both were angry and both needed to vent.

“I wonder why people take the time to arrange a date in order to complain.” Will murmured, seemingly paying attention to the same couple. “Isn’t that kind of pointless? Shouldn’t dates be enjoyable?” _I miss our dates being enjoyable_.

Reid cleared his throat a little and pursed his lips. “Actually it’s been scientifically proven that people who complain live longer than those that don’t since they take the time to remove the excess stress by talking it out to others instead of bottling it up and letting it eat away at them.”

He hadn’t wanted to sound snarky, but he was getting more and more tired with seeing Will’s truths regarding them. The relationship wasn’t ideal but it wasn’t the worst it could be. The fact that Reid now spent most of his working time thinking about Derek Morgan wasn’t helping matters in the slightest, but Will’s attentions were elsewhere too.

“In that case we’ll both live very short lives,” Will replied, his smile thin before taking another sip of his coffee. _We never have anything to talk about anymore._ Reid sighed.

“People go to cafes to talk, Will. ‘Having a coffee’ is a ritual now, more than a literal statement. People go out for coffee to get things off their chests, the coffee itself is arbitrary. It’s…” Reid paused, mug halfway to his mouth, eyes narrowing as something fell into place. He turned, setting his mug aside and watched the couple still complaining in the corner, enjoying each other’s company, speaking loud enough for others to hear and not caring…

“What is it?” Will asked, frowning at Reid’s sudden silence. It rarely happened.

Reid turned back, eyes wide and lips parted.

“I think I just figured out how our unsub is finding his victims.”

-

“The unsub is in his late teens or early twenties,” Hotch began, addressing the Chicago PD as they delivered the profile, “It’s possible that he suffered abuse in his younger years, from a parent or potentially a sibling.”

“He’s methodical, he takes his time to find his victims, learn about them, before he kills them. None of the victims were killed where they were found, some were killed in their homes and moved later,” Reid explained, gesturing and avoiding Morgan’s eyes. They’d been on him all morning just as Reid’s mind had been on Derek. “We believe he isn’t a sadist but has the potential to become one if provoked. He showed significant aggression towards his first victim, Callum James, and later Elias Kane, suggesting they were the ones whose actions angered him the most.”

“We believe the unsub operates from the Splice café in downtown,” JJ said, “All of the people we interviewed confirmed that at one point or another the victims of our victims visited the establishment.”

“I’m sorry, victims of the victims?” a young cop raised his hand and frowned at the team. Hotch nodded.

“So far every person who has been killed has had a history of being violent or abusive. Some were taking advantage of the weak, paedophiles or drug dealers, while others abused through negligence or direct violence. Not one of the victims killed had a clean background.”

“And what does the café have to do with anything?” another cop asked. Reid smiled.

“People go to cafes to talk, they go to relieve their anger and frustration by talking it out to someone who will listen, to anyone who will. Conversations in cafes are usually taken for granted because people assume no one is listening to them, even though they are loud enough to hear, sometimes without trying. The café is in the center of the killer’s radius, and it’s the most logical place where he can hear about people causing others pain, and start his research.”

“He sees himself as a vigilante,” Rossi added, “Doing something he feels the police can’t or won’t do. This makes him incredibly dangerous because he believes what he’s doing is right. It will be difficult if not impossible to negotiate with him.”

“He also signs his work,” Will said quietly, turning to the board behind them, “there was evidence of marker residue on the victims and we were able to reconstruct the image.”

He quickly drew something that looked like two arrows pointing at each other, points meeting to create a strange shape that vaguely resembled an apple core. He turned back to the assembled police officers, marker still in his hand as he explained.

“It’s known as the Hand of Eris and represents someone who identifies as being a Discordian, meaning that they hold the belief that chaos is as important to society as order is.”

“So he’s an anarchist?”

“Not exactly, no,” Reid frowned a little, thinking of how to explain, “He doesn’t create chaos on a large scale, he tends to concentrate it on a single person at a time, creating chaos in their world as opposed to the world around them, mimicking the chaos they themselves caused others. The symbol also represents suffering and strife, so perhaps the unsub is marking his victims as those that had been the cause of such in life.”

The gathered policemen took notes, some shaking their heads, others looking like they wanted to get out into the field. No one said a word and Reid was grateful. His head was killing him and he didn’t need to filter through more lies. Hotch dismissed the officers and called his own so he could brief them on the final planning stages; he wanted Reid to confirm the rough area in which the unsub could live and contact Garcia for a fact check, JJ and Rossi were to interview the last of the victims’ associates, Will and Morgan to set up a perimeter once Reid gave them coordinates.

They broke up into their pairs and set to work.

-

It was late when they got back to the hotel. Reid had convinced the rest of the team to let him stay behind and finish working on the map. He was close, he knew it, he just needed to pin down where the unsub lived and they could catch him. The profile was up, the hunting ground was established, and all that was left was the location.

Morgan had volunteered to stay back. “I have paperwork to do anyway” he’d said.  Reid still found it painfully unnerving that he never lied. In the week that he’d known the man he had never once lied to him. So Morgan finished his reports while Reid taped the map behind the glass board and drew all over the front, groaning in frustration when he had to clear it and start over.

And now they were here, four hours later, 1am flirting with 2. Morgan killed the engine and Reid rubbed his eyes. he was tired. He was tired with the case, he was tired with Will, with the fact that the man next to him had plunged into his life and turned everything upside down… he was _tired_.

“Thanks for the ride,” he offered quietly, sending Morgan a small smile before grabbing his satchel and getting out of the car. Morgan watched him in silence before cursing quietly and getting out too.

“Reid!”

The younger man turned, blinking a few times to keep his eyes focused before raising his eyebrows expectantly, a neutral calm expression on his face. Morgan just watched him, unable to look away, unable to do anything.

“What is it?” Reid asked. Morgan swallowed.

“Never mind.”

“Goddammit I hate that!” Reid burst out, startling Morgan out of his stupor a little. “I really, really hate that. When someone wants to say something but they’re too afraid to actually say it and bait you to ask them.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, exhaustion making him jumpy, short-tempered. “Do you want to say something, Morgan?”

Morgan’s lips parted and he brought them together again, nodding. “Yes.”

“Well what is it then? I am all ears.” Reid spread his arms, expression goading, annoyed. He was sick of keeping his feelings in check around the man, sick of the fact that he couldn’t concentrate because he was waiting for Morgan to slip up, to lie, and he never did. Not once. Sick of seeing him watching him, that calm near-smile on his face that drove Reid insane when he thought about it at night and curled his fingers in the sheets so he wouldn’t touch himself.

“I can’t tell you.” Morgan replied quietly, resting against the car in front of him, fingers rubbing nervously together. Reid’s anger quelled a little.

“Why not?”

“Because I just can’t.”

A low, angry growl worked its way up Reid’s throat and he turned on his heel to leave.

“I want to tell you that I like you.” Morgan called, stopping Reid dead. “But I can’t tell you that, can I?”

Reid fought, he fought with everything he could to not turn and see the lies painted all over Morgan’s face. He couldn’t do it. He turned back slowly, eyes on the ground as Morgan continued.

“I want to tell you to forget about him.” Morgan said, voice softer, as he stepped around the car and walked closer. “Will’s a great guy, the best, and he’s my brother in everything but blood and you two are great together but I still want to tell you to tell him to fuck off and to be with me.”

Reid swallowed hard and finally forced his eyes up to meet Morgan’s.

“Spencer, I want to tell you that since the moment I met you I can’t even get your face out of my brain. But I can’t tell you that.” Morgan’s voice was very quiet now, he was close enough to Reid to touch him and he didn’t, hands at his sides in loose defensive fists as he continued, “That all I want right now in the world is to take you away with me. No Will, no case, no this. Just us. If just for a day.”

Reid wasn’t breathing. not since Morgan had started speaking, his eyes searching his face for the barest hint of a lie.

“But I can’t tell you that.” Morgan breathed, eyes finally leaving Reid’s, “I mean… what kind of person would I be if I went and told you something like that?”

Reid let out a shaking breath and bit his lower lip gently, eyes still on Morgan even though the man wasn’t looking at him anymore.

“I uh… I’d appreciate it… if you didn’t tell Will what I didn’t say.”

Reid took a deep breath, forcing his iron composure back.

“Of course not. Because you didn’t say it.”

Morgan looked up at him, expression broken. “No,” he murmured, “No I didn’t.”

“Thanks for the ride,” Reid murmured back, at length. He took a breath as though to say more before turning around and heading into his hotel. He heard Morgan curse quietly again and get back into his car, the engine slicing through the early morning quiet like a blade.

It took Reid the entire walk up to his suite to figure out that his hands were shaking.

It took him a few sleepless hours next to Will to realize that Morgan hadn’t lied.

Not once.

-

“Just stop? You’ve read the files on the people I’ve killed. They were MONSTERS.”

It was two days after the profile had been released. Garcia had spent sleepless nights gathering information on anyone involved with any of the victims – and their victims – sending the team lists upon lists of potential suspects that just didn’t add up. Not until Morgan mentioned in passing that for guys like this unsub it was ‘all in the name’ that the media gave him did Reid think of checking the meanings of names against the database of people Garcia had provided and they’d found him.

Cillian James, brother of the first victim, who had suffered severe abuse from his brother before he’d killed him, who worked at the Splice café every second weekend, whose name meant ‘strife’. The man now standing surrounded by six police officers and two FBI agents, holding a vial of cyanide very close to his lips.

“Who did you read about, huh?” Cillian asked, stepping closer, ignoring how Morgan raised his gun to adjust to the change, “Who did you have on your desk for the last three months? Tell me that even one of them deserved your sympathy.”

“Cillian,” Morgan’s smooth voice broke through the unsub’s near-hysterical tirade. “Put the vial down. You’re under arrest, you have nowhere to go.”

The young man had just laughed, the sound setting Reid’s teeth on edge as he adjusted his grip on his own weapon, watching Will breathe heavily on the floor near the young man where the unsub had struck him down.

“I could go the same way they did.” He replied, raising an eyebrow, hand jerking the vial a little closer to himself.

“You won’t.” Reid said suddenly, feeling both Morgan and Will train their eyes to him. “You won’t because you aren’t like them. You’re not a monster, you kill the monsters, right?”

Cillian’s eyes narrowed a little, flicking between Reid and Morgan. Reid continued, pushing his luck while he had the younger man quiet.

“If you kill yourself you’re becoming just like them, just like the people you’ve been hunting.”

Cillian’s eyes flicked again, quickly, returning to Reid, slightly panicked. He knew he was trapped, and the fear was finally kicking in now that the adrenaline had slid away. He swallowed. After a moment he lifted his hand and tossed the vial away, hearing it bounce on the hard floor of the warehouse and roll away into the darkness.

Morgan took a step closer and Cillian turned to him with a snarl. “Not you.” He pointed at Reid. “Just him.”

Morgan’s lips drew back on a snarl of his own. The unsub rolled his eyes in frustration.

“I won’t _hurt_ him. He can arrest me.”

Reid saw no lies, nothing but exhaustion and resignation in the young man’s shoulders. He set his gun back into his holster and walked around behind him to cuff his hands behind is back, murmuring the Miranda rights to him quietly as he led him away, exchanging quick looks with Will and Morgan as he passed them.

Outside, it started to rain.

-

It was very early morning by the time Will had been processed at the hospital. He had a concussion and needed to be held for another day for observation, much to his chagrin. JJ had offered to stay with him, jokingly implying that it was a much more amusing pastime than starting on her paperwork. Reid felt a strange pang in his chest when the words above her head read _I am not leaving him alone._ It doubled when Will didn’t ask him to stay too. He’d kissed Will chastely and left the two of them in the room, taking long strides until he reached the back door, the ambulance park. He pulled out his cellphone and dialled.

“’lo?” Morgan sounded like he’d been sleeping. Reid swallowed lightly and took a breath.

“Can I come over?”

There was a pause on the end of the line before Morgan took a breath.

“No.”

“No?”

“No!” Reid’s eyes narrowed and he gripped his phone tighter.

“So first you…”

“There are rules, Reid.” Morgan said, exasperated, “I can’t just…”

“Oh, wow.” Reid nearly hung up on him. After the ten days of fighting with himself he did not need this again, he’d had enough when Morgan had told him about his feelings. Or not told him. “Ok, whatever. That’s fine.”

He held on a beat longer, waiting for Morgan to say something, unwilling to hang up on him.

“No,” came the quiet reply. Reid sighed, eyes closing.

“No, no, no.”

He ran a hand through his hair and parted his lips to speak, apologize maybe, when Morgan spoke again.

“Dammit Spencer… I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

-

There was a cold light on the horizon by the time Morgan pulled up in the carpark and Reid unfolded himself from the freezing metal bench and got into the passenger seat. They were silent a moment, neither looking at the other before Reid sat up a little straighter and licked his lips.

“Drive.”

“Where?”

Reid just glanced over at him, expression exhausted, resigned, longing, and Morgan turned away, peeling away from the curb and heading to his home. They didn’t talk the entire time, Reid busy counting his heartbeats in time to the music in the car, Morgan watching the road, knuckles a little too white against the steering wheel.

When they pulled up at the well-kept small house a few minutes later, Spencer finally relaxed his grip on his satchel. His mind was going a million miles an hour. Why was he here? What the hell was he doing? He should be in the hospital with Will, making sure he was ok, holding his hand and letting him complain about how much he hated being tied down, making jokes about how he should get used to it to spice up their sex life. He should be there, not JJ, he should be there and not here, at Derek Morgan’s house, about to do something he’d either regret or be liberated by.

He swallowed lightly and turned to Derek, parting his lips to speak, and found them otherwise occupied. The kiss was slow and soft, just the pressure of one person’s lips pressing against another’s. When Derek pulled away, Spencer could barely breathe.

“Sorry. I… don’t know if that was the right thing to do.” Derek glanced at him briefly before looking away again, “In fact, I know that was not the right thing to do. But I wanted to anyway.”

Spencer let out a small breath and swallowed. “What are we going to do?”

Derek just shrugged. “I don’t know. This is pretty bad.”

Spencer watched him, noticed the tension in his shoulders, the longing in the expression he wore, want warring with duty and rules…

“What if we pretend this is a dream?” he said suddenly. The expression Derek gave him made Spencer smile, “And nothing that we say or do counts in the waking world and out there we may be horrible people but… right here in our dream, with you and me, this is all ok.”

Derek quirked a smile at him. “A dream…”

“Dreams feel real while we’re in them. This could plausibly be one considering the lack of sleep we’re all suffering from and the stress we’ve been under with th-“ he didn’t finish what would’ve been a fairly impressive rant incorporating everything from Freud to Inception because Derek was kissing him again and Spencer was letting him, smiling against the warmth and feeling Derek smile back. When they broke apart this time they didn’t move far.

“Just for today?”

“Just for right here, right now.”

“We’ll eventually have to wake up.”

Spencer smiled, feeling his heart flutter in a way that it hadn’t for a very long time.

“But not right now.”

-

“Fuck…” Spencer’s back arched off the bed lightly, smile against his lips as he thought, _“Tell me you love me…”_

“Didn’t think my dreams would ever bring you to swearing, pretty boy.” Derek murmured, hands skimming down the young man’s sides, lips tracing the lines of his cheekbones lightly. Spencer smiled, too comfortable to retort. “I wonder what other pretty things I can make you say,”

“You know, most profanity isn’t considered ‘pretty’ in any culture,” Spencer started, grinning wider as Derek shook his head above him and leaned down to shut him up. He kiss was slow, exploratory, tongues probing each other, swiping, trying to find a rhythm as Spencer’s arms snaked around Derek’s shoulders and he pulled him closer, spreading his legs to accommodate the man between them.

Derek groaned. “Christ, baby boy you’ve been driving me crazy all week…”

Spencer licked his lower lip into his mouth and tilted his head a little, brushing his lips against Derek’s again, hands gentle against the larger man’s shoulders, knees drawn up around him. Above him, Derek sighed.

“I want you,” he murmured.

“Then take me.” Spencer breathed back, flicking his eyes up to meet Derek’s before kissing him again in earnest, fingers fumbling with his t-shirt, pulling it from Derek’s jeans and letting his long fingers stroke over the smooth warm skin under it. Derek arched into the touch and brought a hand down to start unbuttoning Spencer’s shirt, kissing him deeper as the younger man squirmed under him impatiently.

Spencer hadn’t felt this giddy in a long time. Derek’s hands on him made him tremble, the way he held himself above him, kissed him like Spencer was the only man he ever wanted to kiss again…

_“I know who I want and it ain’t Will,”_

Derek’s words from days ago made Spencer grin. He dragged his hands down Derek’s back and tugged at his shirt, the material bunching under Derek’s arms before he pulled away long enough to discard it. He leaned back in to kiss Spencer once more, hands in his hair, tugging lightly, tilting his head so his lips could travel lower, over his jaw and down to his throat, licking the skin before biting it lightly, relishing in the sound it drew from the younger man.

Spencer groaned quietly and rolled his hips against Derek’s, dragging his fingers up his back to curl around the back of his neck as Derek continued sucking his skin, unrelenting, hungry, horny, _vibrating_ …

“I make you vibrate,” Spencer breathed happily, eyes closing as Derek took a nipple between his lips and tongued the bud lightly. He bit his lip and gasped, writhing against the feeling, knees drawing up higher, hips rubbing against Derek until the friction became perfect.

Derek grinned against him, gently tugging the nipple between his teeth before moving to give the other the same treatment, one hand sliding down Spencer’s body to stroke him through his pants, other hand gripping his hair tight to hold him still, arched and prone under him.

Spencer made a helpless noise and bucked against Derek’s hand, his breathing becoming more erratic, cheeks coloring as he felt himself grow harder and more desperate.

“Derek… please…”

“You want something, pretty boy?” Derek teased, grinning at Spencer as he continued to stroke him up, taking in all of the young man’s reactions, the way he bit his lip, twisted his head, let his eyes close even as he rolled his hips against Derek’s hand, spread his legs wider in invitation, moaned quietly… he was beautiful.

“Derek…”

And he wasn’t his.

Derek cursed, ducking his head against Spencer’s chest before pulling away, forcing himself to ignore the whimper that followed him, the way Spencer’s body arched to try and find his as he climbed off the bed. He shouldn’t be doing this, neither of them should. Will was his best friend, he couldn’t do this to him… not like this, not with Spencer…

“We can’t…” he whispered, the longing in his eyes making Spencer’s throat constrict a little. More so because he wasn’t lying.

“But we are…” he murmured back, lying back against the bed, looking very much debauched already, shirt untucked and unbuttoned, legs lazily spread against the messy sheets. “And I want to…”

Derek swallowed. “God so do I, baby boy, but we can’t…”

Spencer sighed, biting his lip a moment before letting out a long breath. Somewhere in the room, a cellphone rang and Spencer slowly sat up to look in the direction of the noise. It was his. And it was Will’s personalized ringtone.

He gave Derek a look and crawled over to grab his phone out of his jacket pocket, leaning half off the bed as he answered it.

“Spencer Reid?”

_"Spence, where are you?”_

Derek watched as Spencer leaned over the bed to get his phone and didn’t move back. He had half a mind to distract him from his conversation because he was being such a blatant unbelievable tease but refrained. He sat back, grabbing for his shirt and pulling it over his head again with a sigh as he listened to Spencer talk.

“I went out, needed a walk to clear my head. You know how I get after cases.”

_“Well we’re about to debrief and Hotch wants to know where the hell you are.”_

Spencer’s throat went a little dry. How long had they been here? It was late afternoon by the way the sun was falling, and the clock read 4:15pm when Spencer pulled his phone away from his ear to check, but that didn’t make sense… when Derek had picked him up it was just nearing 6am and now it was… had they spent that long just touching each other’s bodies, talking, laughing, napping together before things had gotten heated?

“I’m sorry, I’ll be there soon.”

 _“Without a ride?”_ Will sounded like he was smiling through the phone and Spencer thought again about how much he hated not being able to read lies unless he could see the person. _“D’you have Derek’s number?”_

Spencer bit his lip hard and glanced at the man in question, letting his eyes rove over his body again.

“Yea I have it somewhere.”

_“Good. Give him a call, he can give you a ride in. Hotch wants to see him anyway.”_

“Alright.”

_“See you soon.”_

Spencer sighed and hung up, thankful that Will hadn’t used an endearment to finish the conversation. He couldn’t stand them usually, and Derek called him all kinds of things. What did that even mean? He smiled to himself and tossed his phone away, falling back into bed and running a hand through his hair as he forced himself to meet Derek’s eyes again.

“Guess it’s time to wake up.”

Spencer nodded at the words and closed his eyes, swallowing down the longing and pain. he felt Derek lean close to kiss him gently and returned the gesture before getting out of bed and making himself presentable.

-

The ride back was quiet, Spencer sitting with his knees against the dashboard, fiddling with the leather of his satchel again as Derek tapped his fingers against the steering wheel to the beat of a song playing. After a while he started to hum, then murmur words along with the song and Spencer couldn’t help but grin to himself.

“Will told me you two were in a band.”

Derek laughed, turning to him and giving him one of his dazzling white smiles.

“Yea he would tell you that, the bastard. One of the saddest days of my high school career was quitting that band.”

Spencer’s smile faded a little and he blinked at Derek in confusion.

“You quit?”

Derek smiled at him again, his own faltering when he saw Spencer’s expression. “Yea, I had other commitments. And I really, really sucked at guitar.”

Spencer’s hearing went a little cloudy for a moment. He wasn’t lying. How could he not be lying? He thought back to the conversation he’d had with Will in the café, just a few days ago, where he’d looked him in the eye and told him they’d kicked Derek out, and he hadn’t lied then either. He felt a little ill.

“You alright?” Derek frowned at him a little, cocking his head to try and catch Spencer’s eye. “Baby boy?”

Spencer didn’t answer. He didn’t know how. Derek had never lied to him… but was that strictly true? Had any words even been truth from him? Had Spencer just found the one person in the world who he couldn’t read? He swallowed, thinking back to all the things Derek had said to him that he’d taken as truth, the endearments the gentle coaxing and sweet words… all lies. All lies that Spencer couldn’t read off him.

Without a word he turned up the music on the radio, ignoring Derek as he spoke to him again.

-

_So maybe Derek Morgan is my archenemy. My nemesis. The one person out there that can nullify my super power. I can’t read him, I can’t hide behind my one and only defence with him. He breaks through my walls and turns everything I know into lies. Or had they always been lies? Had my entire perception of the world relied on people believing what they said for me to be able to call them on it?_

_The plethora of questions that particular path leads me down requires more than my three PhDs can offer, and I’m stuck. In love. Involuntarily blessed with something people spend their entire lives searching for._

_Lucky me._

-

The debrief didn’t take long. The case was closed completely, Cillian James to go on trial that the team didn’t need to be present for unless it went higher. Everyone was exhausted and the jet left in the morning. They had a few hours to kill, deciding to take JJ out for her birthday early, Will shouting the first round of drinks and giving Reid a strange look when he accepted the beer and shot passed his way. He rarely drank.

Morgan joined them, pulled along by Emily and JJ insisting that he was as much part of this team as any of them were. He grinned and ducked his head, following along, glancing up to catch Reid’s eye and never managing to.

Reid wasn’t sure how Will had convinced Rossi that he should sing but it was happening, the team cheering and laughing, even Hotch was grinning, though he was shaking his head to try and cover it up, but it had seemed distraction enough for Morgan to pull him away.

“So are we gonna do this all night or what?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as Reid regarded him with a completely innocent expression.

“Do what, drink?”

“Not talk about this. About… earlier.”

Reid pursed his lips a moment before parting them.

“Yea.” He took a drink of his beer, forcing the disgusting substance down and licking his lower lip into his mouth.

“Yea what?” Morgan frowned at him.

“Yes, we are gonna not talk about this. All night.” Reid clarified, using Morgan’s speech pattern to recite the words back to him. He didn’t need this right now.

Morgan’s brows furrowed a little.

“Spencer, I think I’m in love with you.”

Reid stopped breathing. No lies. But… of course there wouldn’t be. He couldn’t read Morgan.

“What?” he managed quietly. Morgan smiled a little and stepped closer.

“No, fuck that, I am absolutely, positively in love with you.”

Reid made a quiet sound in his throat and swallowed. Morgan’s smile faded again, expression like a kicked puppy.

“Spencer I said I love you.”

“How do I know?” he asked quietly, voice most certainly not breaking in the middle as he watched Derek’s brows rise a little again. The man laughed nervously and tilted his head.

“Well, for one thing, I just told you.”

“I wasn’t arguing your ability or inability to coherently voice your thoughts, Morgan, I was asking how do I know?” Reid replied, voice still just as quietly desperate. Morgan’s face fell.

“I guess you’re just going to have to trust me.”

“That’s the problem, Derek, I don’t… I… I don’t know how to do that. With you. Trust you.”

Morgan looked like Reid had slapped him in the face.

“I guess I thought I would have earned that by now.” He murmured. Reid shook his head, wanting to apologize, to say something to reassure him that he wanted this to be true, to be real, but he had no way of knowing. He’d never been flying blind before, he’d never faced people without his ability to read them shielding him from hurt.

“I’ve known him since senior year,” Morgan said, voice quieter, almost distracted. Reid followed his eyes to where Will was singing into the same microphone as Rossi, the rest of the team laughing and cheering as though this entire conversation wasn’t happening, as though Reid’s whole world wasn’t collapsing around him. “First car I ever drove was Will’s. He lit my first cigarette. Got me out of detentions… had a lot of firsts with him. Now it’s the first time I’ve ever tried to steal anyone’s partner so… guess it fits that I go through that with him too.”

Reid didn’t say anything, fingers gripping his beer bottle so hard he lost feeling in the tips.

“Do you love him?” Morgan asked quietly. Reid barely heard him.

“I don’t know.”

Morgan nodded, chewing the inside of his lip, eyes still on Will as he air-guitared on stage, lost in the moment.

“Do you love me?”

Reid swallowed hard. “Morgan if I knew the answer to that I would logically know the answer to your first question.”

Morgan nodded again. “You’re right not to trust me.” he murmured, “Look what I’m doing to my best friend.” He turned to Reid and offered a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m going to make it easier for you, eliminate myself as a choice in the equation. I’m sorry I burst into your life and fucked it up.”

Reid couldn’t speak, he didn’t have the air to, but he couldn’t just let Morgan walk away, not like that. He accepted the gentle hug from the man in silence, eyes wide and heart pounding. He wasn’t leaving… he couldn’t be leaving him like this…

“Take care, Spencer Reid.” He murmured, kissing him gently on the cheek where the team wouldn’t see. He set his glass down on a table nearby and walked back to the rest of the team to say his goodbyes. Reid followed numbly, forcing himself to recite all the known numbers of pi so he couldn’t do something stupid like cry or open his mouth and say words.

Will jumped down from the stage and enveloped Morgan in a hug that the man returned with feigned enthusiasm.

“Make you sad that you quit the band?” Rossi asked, amused, as he gave the floor to JJ for her turn. Will shook his head with a laugh, pulling Reid close to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

“Don’t believe him for a second, we kicked him out because he sucked.”

Morgan grinned, keeping his eyes away from Reid.

“I believe your exact words were ‘dude, we’re gonna ask you to quit’.”

“You asked him to quit?” Reid interjected, voice a little higher than it needed to necessarily be. Will nuzzled into his hair.

“Kicked him out, asked him to quit… same thing, whatever, right?”

Morgan returned Will’s grin and finally let his eyes settle on Reid’s, expression soft, as though he knew that this was what Reid needed to hear, as though he’d vindicated himself somehow. Reid nearly choked.

_Same thing, whatever._

“You kids have fun.” Morgan winked, saluting JJ on stage as he passed her and left the bar, Reid’s hands shaking a little against the warm bottle he was holding. He moved as Will tugged him away, murmuring something about how he’d missed him at the hospital and had plans for him tonight.

_Same thing, whatever._

Those three words had shattered Spencer Reid’s entire world.

-

_“I have this dream sometimes,” Derek murmured, fingers stroking a stray hair off Spencer’s face and pushing it behind his ear. “I come home from the store and find you on my doorstep. With a suitcase.”_

_Spencer smiled a little and nuzzled closer, one hand curled lightly in the soft fabric of Derek’s shirt, the other under his head as he rested, sharing Derek’s pillow, close enough to feel his words exhaled against his lips._

_“It’s not your entire wardrobe, just a carry-on, a duffel bag. We don’t say anything but you have this… look… in your eye that kills me.”_

_Spencer licked his bottom lip and watched as Derek’s eyes tracked the movement, lingering._

_“And I just… unlock the door and let you in.” he whispered, “And that’s it, that’s the dream. And when I wake up I wake up happy. Vibrating for a few seconds.”_

_Spencer leaned closer and kissed him, feeling Derek relax, feeling him sigh out through his nose against his face as their lips work gently before Derek lightly pushed him away._

_“Then it goes away. And you go away. And I really don’t want to get out of bed then. Because it’s cold out there, but I do.” He pushed Spencer back gently, feeling his fingers uncurl from around his shirt and rest palm-up against the pillow. “I get up,” he moved to straddle him, gently running his hands over Spencer’s face, though his hair and down his sides. “Life goes on.”_

_Spencer spread his legs a little and brought a hand up to caress Derek’s face, sliding down his jaw and resting against his shoulder._

_“Most days you never even cross my mind,” Derek murmured, ducking his head to suck a light mark just above the collar of Spencer’s shirt, in one liquid movement sliding his hips against the younger man’s._

_“Fuck…” Spencer’s back arched off the bed lightly, smile against his lips as he thought,_ “Tell me you love me…”

-

It wasn’t raining in Quantico.

The jet landed at 9am and the team disembarked dragging their luggage to the office. There was paperwork and bad coffee and lies were flitting around everyone’s heads as they explained how the case didn’t affect them and how they weren’t tired at all to Garcia when she bustled in to greet her ‘wonder team’ and offer hugs to her favourites.

Reid held her a moment too long before pulling away, catching her concerned look but dismissing it with a tired smile. The team meandered around the bull pen for a few hours, some writing up their reports, others trying to make the coffee taste like anything but brown bitter water. Reid stared at his reports and tapped the end of his pencil against one for so long the lead snapped, a small dent in the card where he’d been striking it.

_Same thing, whatever._

Those words hadn’t left him as they’d left the bar and returned to their respective hotel rooms, as he took a scalding shower and kissed Will gently, apologizing that he wasn’t in the mood, resorting to firing off statistics about how a person with a concussion shouldn’t be performing strenuous activity in his state until Will just laughed softly and let him sleep, obviously annoyed by the turn of events but not voicing his concerns.

Reid tossed his pencil to the table and rubbed his eyes in frustration before getting up and walking to Garcia’s cave of technology, knocking lightly and coming in when she voiced her permission.

“Alright, my little genius, what’s eating you? And don’t give me some statistic about how a bajillion microbes are eating our bodies every three point eight seconds, you know perfectly well what I mean.”

“A bajillion isn’t a real number.” Reid replied quietly, Garcia just huffed. “I… I don’t know what to do. With Will.”

“Oh sweetie,” Garcia pulled up another chair and Reid sank into it with a sigh. “Tell me what happened?”

“Derek Morgan happened.” Reid murmured, smiling a little at Garcia’s expression. She really was the biggest fangirl of anyone she happened to like. You would’ve thought Reid was a celebrity with the way Garcia followed his relationships, few and short as they were.

“Do you love him?” she asked. Reid just blinked before sighing.

“He likes me, I like him.” _Spencer, I think I’m in love with you._

“More than Will?” she pushed gently.

_No, fuck that, I am absolutely, positively in love with you._

“Different than Will.” Reid sighed again. Garcia nodded.

“Will’s a great guy, Spence,” _JJ loves him_. “So did you…”

“No.” Garcia raised an eyebrow. “Kind of.” She raised is higher, Reid rolled his eyes. “Almost.”

“But you didn’t.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Reid said, exasperated, “Because he’s in Chicago and I’m here and the decision pretty much makes itself doesn’t it?” _I’m going to eliminate myself as a choice in the equation_.

Garcia watched him a moment before picking up a rubbery thing with flailing tentacles and tossing it at him. When Reid caught it, it lit up.

“Spencer Reid you are making this decision for yourself, you hear me? Not circumstance. No excuses. Do not take the easy way you, pumpkin, you’ll regret it.”

“I’m going to end up regretting something,” Reid replied with a pout, twanging the tentacles of the little toy in his hands until it stopped glowing. Garcia gave him a small smile and turned back to her work, leaving him to his thoughts.

Knowing everything doesn’t make you wise.

Knowing the truth doesn’t make you superior.

Knowing your problem doesn’t solve it.

And being stuck between your past and your future doesn’t mean you’re in the present.

“I choose to be alone,” Reid murmured quietly after a moment. Garcia’s typing slowed for a moment before she continued working, not another word passed between them.

-

The sun beat down as Spencer lowered his sunglasses over his eyes and frowned at the dashboard. The team had taken their annual leave for two weeks and gone their separate ways. His breakup with Will had been a quiet affair, with Will begging him to stay even as the words around his head thanked him for leaving. He and JJ had gotten together perhaps a week later and Spencer had never seen either happier.

He’d spent a long time alone, walking at night or working on the three body problem in his spare time between cases. Reading and rereading Proust in the original and teaching himself Arabic. He filled his time but he couldn’t fill his mind. Or, more accurately, he couldn’t fill it with anything to push out his thoughts of Derek.

They hadn’t spoken at all since the case, Spencer being too much of a coward in his own eyes to call the man, and Derek obviously of the same mind about him as he’d never made the call himself. It had taken a month before Spencer was going out of his mind. He’d taken his leave, surprising Hotch by asking for the full two weeks, packed a duffel and borrowed the company SUV to drive to Chicago.

And now, as it neared sundown and the sun vindictively sliced through the UV protection of his sunglasses, Spencer felt his heart crawl up his throat and rest there.

What would he tell him when he saw him? Would Derek even want to see him? The way they’d parted it was difficult to tell, the way he’d looked when Spencer had tried to explain to him why he couldn’t trust him, why he could never understand…

He navigated the streets to Derek’s house and parked a few blocks over, locking the car and pulling his duffel over his shoulder before starting to walk. He remembered Derek’s whispered dream, had always found it fascinating that the man assumed he’d come to him, and not the other way around, that Spencer should make the first move even though Derek was clearly the more dominant of the two…

When he knocked no one answered. The house was empty and quiet, the street cool in the lazy twilight just before evening hit in full force. Spencer sighed and sat on the front porch, hands between his knees, tapping out the count of Beethoven’s second movement of the seventh symphony. He waited.

He saw Derek before Derek saw him. Carrying a small bag of groceries and checking something on his phone. When he saw Spencer he stopped, jaw going slack, hand slowly coming to rest by his side, his phone forgotten. They were quiet, neither spoke, and then Spencer stood up, and Derek stepped closer, and they were eye to eye.

Slowly, carefully, Spencer leaned closer and rested his forehead against Derek’s shoulder. The other tensed for a moment, shifted, and relaxed, placing a gentle kiss against Spencer’s hair before stepping away to open the front door. Spencer watched him, heart tattooing his fears against his throat as he swallowed, following Derek into the house, and wrapping his arms around him.

“Tell me you love me?”


End file.
